All the President's Justices? The Impact of Presidential Copartisanship on Supreme Court Job Approval

Bartels, Brandon L.; Kramon, Eric

doi:10.1111/ajps.12617

Cited by 10 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 40 publications

(52 reference statements)

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“…For both race and gender, the legitimacy gaps temporarily diminish in early 2016, shortly after Justice Scalia's unexpected passing. This may have been a time of uncertainty in which individuals of different backgrounds were prospectively re-evaluating their support for the Court (Bartels & Kramon, 2021). Otherwise, the gender gap is fairly stable from 2012-2017.…”

Section: Results: Taps (2012-2017)mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Gender Gap in Supreme Court Legitimacy

Krewson

Schroedel

2023

American Politics Research

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Men and women diverge in their political behavior and attitudes. We test whether gender-based variation in political attitudes extends to perceptions of US Supreme Court legitimacy. Using a dataset covering the years 2012–2017, we show that one’s identification as a man or a woman predicts their diffuse support for the Court. In particular, women almost always extend less legitimacy to the Court than men do. This is true within both Republican and Democratic identifiers, and regression analysis shows the gender gap holds when controlling for partisanship, ideology, race, age, education, income, and Supreme Court approval. Additionally, we included a series of questions in a 2021 Cooperative Election Study (CES) module to explore why the gender gap in perceived legitimacy exists. We find that differences in perceptions of the Court’s representation of women and its fairness drive the gender gap in legitimacy.

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Section: Results: Taps (2012-2017)mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Gender Gap in Supreme Court Legitimacy

Krewson

Schroedel

2023

American Politics Research

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“…In fact, our findings demonstrate that, across vignettes, partisanship significantly conditions approval of (liberal) Justice Breyer and (conservative) Justice Thomas. Moreover, a recent study by Bartels and Kramon (2022) shows that, over the past few decades, partisan approval of the Supreme Court has fluctuated based on who is in the White House. What is more, these results could be partly due to the timing of the survey.…”

Section: Study 3 (Affective Polarization)mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Rule of Law in Red and Blue: Affective Polarization and Support for Legal Institutions in the United States

Masood,

Strickler,

Zilis

2024

American Politics Research

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A defining feature of democracies is an independent legal system, where elites and the public alike accept the broader legitimacy of its actions, even if they run counter to political preferences. Existing scholarship suggests that public support for rule of law institutions is rooted in perceptions of procedural fairness. However, amid increasing levels of affective polarization, we posit a partisan presidential heuristic wherein citizens’ views of legal institutions are influenced by their partisanship and signals from the president. Through multiple experiments, we demonstrate that support for two key institutions—the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Justice—is substantially derived from the intersection of one’s partisan identity and their partisan proximity to the president. These effects are strongest among respondents exhibiting high levels of affective partisanship. Our results suggest that in forming perceptions of the rule of law, partisan politics is increasingly competing with perceptions of procedural fairness, thereby subverting support for legal institutions in the United States.

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“…Finally, we expect that partisanship may condition how individuals perceive scandals. Existing research establishes that the public processes a Supreme Court nominee's approval through shared partisanship with the President (Bartels and Kramon 2022). With regard to scandal, out-partisans may be eager to punish scandalized judicial actors, whereas copartisans may rally behind judges who they believe are falsely accused.…”

Section: Theoretical Expectationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Your Honor’s Misdeeds: The Consequences of Judicial Scandal on Specific and Diffuse Support

Boston

Kassow²,

Masood³

et al. 2023

APSC

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Legitimacy is a bulwark for courts; even when judges engage in controversial or disagreeable behavior, the public tends to acquiesce. Recent studies identify several threats to the legitimacy of courts, including polarization and attacks by political elites. This article contributes to the scholarly discourse by exploring a previously unconsidered threat: scandal, or allegations of personal misbehavior. We argue that scandals can undermine confidence in judges as virtuous arbiters and erode broad public support for the courts. Using survey experiments, we draw on real-world judicial controversies to evaluate the impact of scandal on specific support for judicial actors and their rulings and diffuse support for the judiciary. We demonstrate that scandals erode individual support but find no evidence that institutional support is diminished. These findings may ease normative concerns that isolated indiscretions by controversial jurists may deplete the vast “reservoir of goodwill” that is foundational to the courts.

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All the President's Justices? The Impact of Presidential Copartisanship on Supreme Court Job Approval

Cited by 10 publications

References 40 publications

The Gender Gap in Supreme Court Legitimacy

The Gender Gap in Supreme Court Legitimacy

The Rule of Law in Red and Blue: Affective Polarization and Support for Legal Institutions in the United States

Your Honor’s Misdeeds: The Consequences of Judicial Scandal on Specific and Diffuse Support

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